⤵️Let’s look at the data that five COFFIS member @IISD_news countries have shared on their fossil subsidies.
We will rate the transparency of their submissions.
😦Spoiler: it's a mixed bag.
At COP29, only five COFFIS members shared their "fossil fuel subsidy inventory".
This is a first step towards the phase-out of fossil subsidies.
The quality of these "inventories" varies greatly.
🇦🇹First, Austria @MFA_Austria
Landing page only in German…
We do find the Austrian “contribution” to COFFIS, in English, at the bottom (please make the effort to translate the graphics in it though…)
bmf.gv.at/themen/klimapo…
😕However, we are confused. This is not an inventory at all. This is a document outlining their methodology on what a “counterproductive measure” is.
We don’t see any list of fossil subsidies in here.
📉They say that “the ultimate goal is to achieve a reduction of at least 2 million tons of CO₂ equivalent annually by phasing out counterproductive incentives and subsidies by 2030.”
⏰2030 is too late. Anyway, very interesting, but not an inventory.
🤷Maybe what we are looking for is hidden somewhere else in the landing page. Please help us if you find it.
Final grade: 4.5/10 - Let us know when you publish the actual inventory.
🇧🇪Let’s move to Belgium @BelgiumMFA
This is what we like! Clear and transparent. Even an archive!
Let's look at the May 2024 document.
finance.belgium.be/en/figures_and…
👉“The choice made in this Inventory is that of an approach combining the OECD bottom-up approach and the WTO approach.”
👉"Direct subsidies amount to €12,096 million in 2021, or 2.4 points of GDP."
👉"Indirect subsidies amount to 0.5 % of GDP."
All in all, good job: 7.5/10 in transparency.
We would have liked an Excel spreadsheet with it though.
🇫🇷 Next, France: @francediplo_EN
Again, this is not an inventory. Please help us if you find it. Only general mentions of green investments and “unfavourable” investments to the environment, no reference to fossil subsidies at all. budget.gouv.fr/reperes/green_…
🥱Sorry, we are not going through the 317-page report at the bottom trying to find information on fossil subsidies (ctrl+f doesn’t help either).
Final mark: 3.5/10 (+0.5 for the benefit of the doubt, maybe the info is somewhere in there)
🇮🇪Next, Ireland! @EamonRyan @Dept_ECC
Nice, we like it. Very clear number at the top: 4.7 billion EUR of fiscal cost in 2022.
cso.ie/en/releasesand…
We see info on methodology, direct and indirect fossil subsidies, downloadable data, interactive graphs and tables.
👏Final mark: 10/10 (no notes, kudos to the Central Statistics Office of Ireland @CSOIreland )
🇳🇱Finally, one of COFFIS co-chairs, the Netherlands. @IGG_NL @DutchMFA @MinisterieKGG
Immediate disappointment when we are asked to download a 420-page document in only Dutch. It’s as if they wanted to bury this information...
Let’s do some ctrl+f.
We see the final section on “fossiele regelingen” (“fossil schemes”).
👉“The budgetary interest for all fossil schemes added together in the inventory approach in 2024 amounts to 28.5 billion euros.”
We see a few overview tables listing fossil schemes and their amount.
Mark: 5/10 (We can’t give a 6 if it’s not at least partially in English, -0.5 for being the chair and not setting the example)
➡️Suggestion: Take the final chapter of the document, translate it into English and re-publish it as your submission, just like Austria did.
Final comments to COFFIS @IISD_news @Ivetta_G @aiabrnic :
This is not good. The quality of the submissions undermines the (frankly, low) credibility of the initiative. The “inventories” are all over the place.
1⃣Can members at the very least agree on a few common elements? (e.g. total amount, methodology used, list of subsidies, language of the submission…)
2⃣Should we still be expecting COFFIS members to agree on a common methodology, as suggested in the COP28 joint statement?
Apparently, when the Dutch minister of climate Sophie Hermans @MinisterKGG said that transparency is a “hard task”, she wasn’t lying.
It only appears that it is a hard task if you put very little effort in it.
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